


A New Frontier, A New Home

by TiredofOldUsernamesMF



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Episode: s07e25 What You Leave Behind, Forgive Me, M/M, Sort Of, Wish Fulfillment, no beta we die like men, shameless fluff, with no friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:26:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24413572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiredofOldUsernamesMF/pseuds/TiredofOldUsernamesMF
Summary: A short story about a sort of alternate ending to the series that barely does anything to justify itself.
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak, Julian Bashir/Ezri Dax
Comments: 5
Kudos: 45





	A New Frontier, A New Home

**Author's Note:**

> I literally just had this idea a few hours ago and decided to publish it. I'll probably regret this, but someone might like it.
> 
> Kudos and comments are reassuring.

Julian Bashir was having a bit of an abandonment crisis.

Well, maybe more than just a bit.

Julian no longer felt like anyone on the station strongly disliked him, but the three people he considered friends were all leaving him. Miles O’Brien was returning to Earth with his family. Garak was returning to what was left of Cardassia. Julian thought he’d still have Ezri Dax, but that was going poorly. After spending a night together and going to battle side-by-side, when they finally had a moment of peace, a moment to just talk, she asked an unexpected question.

“Julian, when you see me, do you see me as Ezri or Dax?”

Julian tried to give what he thought was the “correct” answer.

“Both, I guess.”

“What about Jadzia?”

“What about her?”

“When you’re with me, are you thinking about her?”

“No. I mean, she’s a part of you, a part of Dax, but she’s just one part and you’re the part I’m talking to.”

“But not the part you love.”

“I wasn’t in love with Jadzia. I thought I was for a time, but it was childish infatuation, nothing more. You’re the one I love, Ezri.”

“No. Dax is the one you love.”

“What?”

“When you thought you loved Jadzia, it was because of Dax. Now, you think you love me. If you’d met Curzon, you would’ve thought you loved him. That’s why you could be friends with Jadzia after all that pestering for her affection. Jadzia was your friend, but you loved Dax.”

“Does it matter? Whichever one I love, it’s still you, isn’t it?”

“No, Julian. It isn’t. You love Dax, you were friends with Jadzia, but what about me? What about Ezri?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want you to admit that Ezri is just a new body for you to be with Dax through, that her friendship is nothing more than the ghost of Jadzia!”

“But that’s not true! I love you, Ezri!”

“You don’t love me. You’ll think you do for a while, but then you’ll see that it’s another childish infatuation, nothing more.”

The argument continued for over an hour as Julian tried to figure out what he’d said to bring this on. Where did he go wrong? They were happy together and then, out of the blue, Ezri was convinced that he didn’t love her, that he didn’t understand her well enough to truly love her. Did Worf understand something about Jadzia that he was missing with Ezri? Was it that Jadzia understood herself in a way that Ezri didn’t? She was more confident then. She knew who she was. She didn’t need to be constantly reassured that she was loved.

Julian missed Jadzia. He missed their friendship. He missed her confidence, the fact that she could think calmly and logically, but still had a sense of humor. She was fun to be around. He thought he’d found those qualities in Ezri, but maybe those were qualities of Dax that moved from host to host. He wanted to be friends with Dax, any Dax, so badly that when he realized that Ezri loved him, he had to love her back. It wasn’t that he did love her. It was that he just had to. She loved him too much to just be his friend, so he loved her back to keep their friendship.

But, Ezri wanted real love. Julian couldn’t give her that. So, he lost her. He lost her love and her friendship and all his other friends were leaving the station. He’d lost everyone. Miles and Garak both hadn’t even left yet and he already felt like the loneliness would drive him mad.

Having nowhere else to go, Julian went to the holosuite. He could escape his life there. He was stuck with all the memories of having his friends join him on adventures, so he could never truly escape his feelings of isolation, but he could be somewhere that wasn’t the station he’d been left behind on as everyone else went home. Ezri would most likely be returning to Trill to distance herself from him, so that was everyone. 

He could leave the station, but he had no home to return to. Despite their parting on good terms, he didn’t want to see his parents again. Nobody was better at making him feel like a failure than they were. That feeling of failure is what he’d fled into the stars to escape.

So, he escaped into his fantasies, though none of them helped him. All of the historical battles were meant to be fought with Miles. The spy program had attracted the attention of Section 31 and he’d had a fight with Garak there. The idea of going to Vic Fontaine’s program and seeking out the friendship of a computer program, even though that program was as sentient as he was, felt pathetic. He decided that his tennis program was the least painful, though he had no one to play against. He played against the wall, imagining that he could smash a ball into it so hard that he could dent it, then it’d be broken like he was.

Broken. Alone. Pathetic. Feeling sorry for himself. Running away from his life instead of trying to live it. Hating everything, his life, himself, his so-called friends who’d left him to rot, and the fact that none of them even deserved his hatred, but that he couldn’t bring himself to do anything but hate them.

But then, he heard a voice:

“May I join you?”

A familiar voice. The voice of someone who’d broken into one of his programs before. Garak. Julian wanted to be angry, but someone was offering him company that he wanted more than anything and he didn’t want to risk losing it.

“Fine. I can’t exactly call Odo to have you arrested now, can I?”

Garak properly entered the holosuite and went not to the other side of the net, but to stand right beside Julian. Julian continued to stare at the wall, so Garak did the same.

“And yet, if that were possible, you still wouldn’t do it.”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t. Do you even know how to play?”

“No, but it doesn’t look complicated. Although, I’d rather just talk for a while.”

“Since I have someone to talk to now, why not?”

“What would you like to talk about?”

“I could start by asking why you’re here instead of on the way to Cardassia.”

“And I could say that my ride is late.”

“Which would be a lie.”

“How did I ever let you learn to see through me?”

“You didn’t let me. I insisted.”

“Thank you for allowing me to pretend it wasn’t a failure on my part.”

“Not that I expect an honest answer, but why are you really here?”

“Quark told me that you’d locked yourself in the holosuite and I was curious.”

“Quark just told you that?”

“I heard about you and Ezri Dax and I asked about you.”

“Why?”

“I realized that without her, there’s no one else on this station for you to really talk to. You need conversation just as much as I do.”

“I’ll miss our conversations as much as you will.”

Garak repositioned himself to look at Julian, blocking his view of the wall.

“There’s something that I don’t understand.”

“What?”

“What could you possibly have done to deserve exile on this station?”

“I’m not in exile. I just don’t have a home to return to.”

Garak, after a strangely long pause, took a step closer to Julian and held out his hand.

“I know of a place that’s desperately in need of a good doctor. I could take you there. If you don’t have a home, you could consider it a new frontier to explore.”

Julian understood what Garak meant. He could go to Cardassia. The planet was in such disarray that the him being a Human wouldn’t matter, as long as he could help them. After spending years trying to find Cardassian medical information, he could certainly try.

But, there was more to Garak’s offer than a new place to work. Julian could see it in his eyes. He held out his hand as an offer of something more than the friendship they’d had. Trusting his instincts, Julian accepted.

“It’s more than that, isn’t it? You want to take me home with you.”

Julian took Garak’s hand and Garak laced their fingers together as their palms touched. Julian had been around Cardassians for long enough to know what that meant. 

“If you’ll allow me.”

A wave of heat came over him as Julian felt an intensity in Garak’s touch that he hadn’t felt since they first met. Surprising himself, Julian didn’t pull away. He took a step forward. Garak pulled him even closer. Their chests were touching.

Julian had fallen in love with Dax before. Not with the beautiful Jadzia or Ezri, but an agendered worm-like being. Falling in love for him, he’d learned, wasn’t about throwing himself at beautiful women. It was about, for whatever reason, for whoever he was falling for, just letting himself fall.

Julian didn’t mean for that fall to be literal, but he lost his balance when Garak closed the distance between them. He reached out for the nearest stable thing to hold onto, which happened to be Garak’s left shoulder. When Garak softly hissed, Julian worried for a second that he’d hurt him, but when he looked up at Garak’s face, he was smiling. This was apparently a good thing.

Garak took Julian’s hand off his shoulder and laced their fingers together like they were already doing with their other hands. He waited for the confused Human to respond. Well, from the eager look in his eyes, perhaps he wasn’t so confused after all. When Julian leaned forward and brought their lips together, responding to a Cardassian gesture with a Human equivalent, it was absolutely clear that the intended message had been received and accepted.

After less than 13 hours of packing and explaining and saying goodbyes, Julian left Deep Space 9 with Garak, off to explore what he hoped would become his new home.


End file.
